Applying user preferences, behavioral patterns and/or environmental factors to an automated customer support application

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus of applying user profile information to a customized application are disclosed. One example method of operation may include receiving an inquiry from a user device at a customer call center server and identifying and authorizing the user from the received inquiry. The method may also provide retrieving a user profile from memory that includes history information based on previous interactions between the user device and the customer call center server and calculating a prediction as to a purpose for the inquiry. The prediction may be based on user profile history, social networking profile information, recent transactions, etc. The method may also provide transmitting a response to the inquiry based on the calculated prediction.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/683,654, filed Aug. 22, 2017, entitled “APPLYING USER PREFERENCES,BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS AND/OR ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO AN AUTOMATEDCUSTOMER SUPPORT APPLICATION”, which is a continuation from U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/340,607, filed Nov. 1, 2016, entitled “APPLYINGUSER PREFERENCES, BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS AND/OR ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO ANAUTOMATED CUSTOMER SUPPORT APPLICATION”, now issued U.S. Pat. No.9,741,056, which is a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/132,898, filed Apr. 19, 2016, entitled “APPLYING USER PREFERENCES,BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS, AND/OR ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO AN AUTOMATEDCUSTOMER SUPPORT APPLICATION”, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 9,485,356, whichis a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/262,982,filed Apr. 28, 2014, entitled “APPLYING USER PREFERENCES, BEHAVIORALPATTERNS AND/OR ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO AN AUTOMATED CUSTOMER SUPPORTAPPLICATION”, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 9,319,522, the entire contents ofeach of which is incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to a customer support application that appliesuser preferences, and more particularly, to a customer supportapplication that provides a customized call procedure based on userselected options and/or predefined user preferences that are identifiedand applied to an existing application model.

BACKGROUND

Conventionally, customer service phone calls, emails, chat and even thenewer mobile phone applications are relatively the same for allcustomers. Certainly, user selections may dictate different results(e.g., “pay bill”, “technical support”, “add new services”, “cancelservice”, etc.). However, user options are still presented to customersin a similar format from the automated call center or customer servicesupport system. Customer support systems, such as interactive voiceresponse (IVR) systems offer one or more options to the user(s) withoutany regard for the specific user and his or her preferences orrequirements.

SUMMARY

One embodiment of the present application may include a method thatincludes receiving an inquiry from a user device at a customer callcenter server, identifying and authorizing the user from the receivedinquiry, retrieving a user profile from memory comprising historyinformation based on previous interactions between the user device andthe customer call center server, calculating a prediction as to apurpose for the inquiry, and transmitting a response to the inquirybased on the calculated prediction,

Another example embodiment may include an apparatus that includes areceiver configured to receive an inquiry from a user device and aprocessor configured to identify and authorizing the user from thereceived inquiry, retrieve a user profile from memory comprising historyinformation based on previous interactions between the user device andthe customer call center server, calculate a prediction as to a purposefor the inquiry, and a transmitter configured to transmit a response tothe inquiry based on the calculated prediction.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication network illustrating acustomer communicating with a customer service support system.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example system flow diagram of an applicationpersonalization operation applied to a customer service call.

FIG. 2B illustrates an example system diagram of the communicationsignaling for providing a user device with predicted options based onprior user history.

FIG. 2C illustrates an example network diagram of an alternative exampleof using a third party user profile to generate predictive responses toa user device.

FIG. 2D illustrates an example system diagram of the communicationsignaling for providing a user device with predicted options based onthird party user information.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example application personalization systemconfiguration according to example embodiments.

FIG. 4A illustrates an example flow diagram of an example method ofoperation according to example embodiments.

FIG. 4B illustrates another example flow diagram of an example method ofoperation according to example embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates a network entity that may include memory, softwarecode and other computer processing hardware used to perform variousoperations according to example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

It will be readily understood that the components of the presentapplication, as generally described and illustrated in the figuresherein, may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of differentconfigurations. Thus, the following detailed description of theembodiments of a method, apparatus, and system, as represented in theattached figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the presentapplication as claimed, but is merely representative of selectedembodiments of the present application.

The features, structures, or characteristics of the present applicationdescribed throughout this specification may be combined in any suitablemanner in one or more embodiments. For example, the usage of the phrases“example embodiments”, “some embodiments”, or other similar language,throughout this specification refers to the fact that a particularfeature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with theembodiment may be included in at least one embodiment of the presentapplication. Thus, appearances of the phrases “example embodiments”, “insome embodiments”, “in other embodiments”, or other similar language,throughout this specification do not necessarily all refer to the samegroup of embodiments, and the described features, structures, orcharacteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or moreembodiments.

In addition, while the term “message” has been used in the descriptionof embodiments of the present application, the present application maybe applied to many types of network data, such as packet, frame,datagram, etc. For purposes of this present application, the term“message” also includes packet, frame, datagram, and any equivalentsthereof. Furthermore, while certain types of messages and signaling aredepicted in exemplary embodiments of the present application, thepresent application is not limited to a certain type of message, and thepresent application is not limited to a certain type of signaling.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example communication network 100 including acustomer contacting a customer service support system according toexample embodiments. Referring to FIG. 1, a customer 110 may include auser 111 operating a mobile device 112. For example, the mobile devicemay be a phone or similar mobile communication device 112 (i.e.,smartphone) that is used to place a call to a business entity, such as acable company to discuss a technical support matter. The call may beconnected at operation 150 to a customer support system, such as aninteractive voice response (IVR) system 115. A customer servicerepresentative may be operating a phone 117 across a voice network 110(i.e., digital network (Internet), public switched telephone network(PSTN), private data network, etc.). The call may also be answered by anautomated call processing system that provides automated user optionsvia an IVR communication server 116.

In operation, the call may be placed by a dialed number on the user'ssmartphone 112. The call may be routed to a customer service supportsystem 115 and connected to an IVR server 116. The call may be initiatedby a dialed number of an automated call placing function associated withan installed application on the user's smartphone 112. Upon connectingthe call, the IVR server 116 may identify and authenticate the user 111as being a particular person with a corresponding profile (i.e., useraccount number, user name and address, user preferences, etc.). Theprofile may be a database record that is identified from a memorylocated in the user preference database 120. The user's smartphonedevice 112 may be identified as having a particular SIM card or otheridentifying feature that provides identification and authorization ofthe user 111 via the user's device 112. The user may also be identifiedby dialing or speaking his or her name and/or account number once thecall has started and the user is prompted to supply identificationinformation.

Upon receiving identification of the user, the call processing IVRserver 116 may attempt to further authorize the user prior to accessingthe user's account information and offering the user 111 an opportunityto make changes to his or her account. The user may be authorized andidentified to access their own customer records to make changes to theiraccount. The server 116 may retrieve the customer's known preferencesfor handling a customer call inquiry. Preferences may also be receivedfrom the user by a series of questions and corresponding user responses.For example, the user may have elected to have the outstanding balancebe the first presented information to the user based on known userpreferences. Certain users would only call into the IVR system toconfirm their payment balance and make payments. The users that may haveelected to have billing information as their top priority will beidentified according to a confirmed menu option choice that is stored inthe user's profile information. The profile information will beretrieved based on the identified user information and used as a flag oridentifier by the call processing system as a trigger to provide anautomated ‘present balance due’ parameter to the user without delay. Forexample, a user with a preferred billing preference would beidentified/authorized and the IVR menu would offer the user an immediateresponse of “Hello Mr. John Smith, your current balance is $180.33,would you like to use your credit card ending in XYZZ to pay the bill atthis time?”

Other user options may be identified as preferences for other services,for example, a user may have having frequent technical service problemsand as a result, the user preferences may be updated automaticallywithout user selection affirmation to provide a customer supportrepresentative the moment the user has logged into the system. Otherusers may be more interested in the latest content selections, orservice upgrade packages. For example, the user may have previouslyspoken to a customer service representative or provided a response tothe IVR system to be updated or added to a preference list of customerswho can easily receive upgrade information as it becomes available. Theuser may call the customer service hotline at a later time and receive arecorded message upon being identified, such as “you're eligible for afree 3-month upgrade and no strings attached viewing package thatincludes access to the everyday sporting ticket for college basketball,never miss a game again!” In this case, the customer has eitherexpressed interest in certain upgrade packages or sports viewingpackages previously in prior calls and such information was retrievedfrom the database and used as the basis for a menu option trigger thatpresented the upgrade to the user before any other upgrade options.

Other examples of user preferences which may be manually setup andassociated with the user account may include a language preference(e.g., English, Spanish, etc.), interaction with a female vs. a maleagent, removal of pre-recorded instructions, removal of greetings andstatements, such as “how are you today?” and “thank you”, accountbalance being immediately presented to the caller, bypassing a main menuand having a default menu or sub-menu redirection to other menu options,such as ordering, upgrades, technical support, etc., hobby inquisitionquestions being presented to the caller, speech recognition vs. DTMFmenu selection preferences being presented to the caller, etc.

The user preferences may be received and stored in the user preferencedatabase 120 and retrieved each time a user presented menu option orrelated function is initiated within the call processing system 100. Themenu option may be presented to the user based on a prior examination ofthe retrieved user preference(s). The user may be identified, authorizedand then his or her user preferences may be obtained during the courseof the call or from pre-stored information associated with the userprofile stored in the user preference database 120. The call may be aninquiry message, such as an email, a text message, a voice recording, acustomer service ticket, an application generated message or a phonecall, any of which invoke the customer service functions of the systemdescribed by the present disclosure.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example system flow diagram of an applicationpersonalization operation applied to a customer service call. Referringto FIG. 2A, the flow diagram 200 includes a customer 111 operating amobile device 112. In operation, the customer may call, initiate aninquiry message generation and/or trigger a calling operating via anapplication on his or her mobile device 112. The mobile device 112 mayestablish communication with an interactive voice response system 220via a mobile communication call (i.e., PSTN) or digital voicecommunication link (i.e., Internet). The call may be directed by an IVRapplication model 212 that provides a basic framework for differenttypes of user preferences and user initiated selections which may bereceived, computed and associated with a user call for customizationpurposes.

During the initial call setup and IVR system user interaction with thecustomer's mobile device 212, the customer may elect certain optionswhen prompted by the application personalization system. The user mayoffer certain information, such as (i.e., preferred order of menuoptions, IVR communication preferences, types of menu options presented,user priorities, etc.). A preference/personalization manager 210 mayaccept the user's input information and commands and generate a userprofile that may be applied to the user or user's device for presentand/or future call processing options transmitted to the user's mobiledevice 112.

As a result of receiving user input preferences and related information,a user representation IVR model 214 may organize the layout of options,questions, and messages to be transmitted to the user's mobile deviceupon connecting a call to the customer support center. The user may nowplace a new call or the concurrently placed call will now receive userspecific menu options based on the retrieved user profile and customizeduser application template generated based on known user preferences. Inoperation, when a user call is received at the customer processingsystem, a determination is made as to whether the user has a knownprofile stored in the user representation IVR model databank 214. If sothe personalized decision operation 218 will retrieve and apply the usermodel at function 224. If not, the system will apply the default model222 and the dynamic application generation function 230 will proceed tohandle the call logic accordingly.

According to one example embodiment, the user preferences may have adirect link, tag, pointer or other data identification mechanism toremove or add pre-recorded options to a presently conducted call. Forexample, if there are large number of possible menu options andscenarios that can potentially be presented to the caller, then most ofthose options may be paired with a particular pre-recorded voice/audiosegment that is retrieved from memory and presented to the callerdepending on the applied preferences and the present status of the call.For example, the caller may dial the customer access line via directdialing or from an application on his or her smartphone and be connectedwith a voice recorded system that greets the caller and seeks toinitiate an authorization and identification procedure based on the userprovided audio, DTMF selections, or based on the telephone numberassociated with the caller's device.

Once a caller is identified/authorized, the caller may then be presentedwith a menu option that is based on one or more caller preferences. Forinstance, the user representation model 224 in FIG. 2A may present thecaller with a particular menu option based on one or more retrieved userpreferences stored in the user representation IVR model 214. Forexample, one user option selection menu option may be [initialpreference] and may have a user selected preference of [pay bill] or[hear current balance], either of those options may invoke a particularaudio segment, such as [audio “balance is:” {input ‘dollar’ variable foruser X} “would you like to pay now”].

The pre-recorded segment may be identified as one particular audiosegment that is paired to the user preference(s) and all other audiosegments may be uninitiated or remain idle until one or more of thoseother audio segments are invoked for incorporation into the present callaudio. The system may queue a number of different audio segments in aparticular order dictated by the caller's preferences, which may includea priority. For example, the caller may set a first priority (1)—hearpresent ‘balance’, (2)—hear about new ‘movies’, ‘sports’,‘pay-per-view’, (3) pay bill, etc.

According to one example, the user's voice may have been recorded asspeaking certain preferences during a prior call or any earlier part ofthe same call (e.g., “college”, “sports”, “basketball”, “football”,“independent films”, “horror movies”, “children shows”, etc.). Also, theuser may have selected certain options via the dial pad that are linkedto those above-noted example categories. In those cases, the informationmay be stored in a database as a content file linked to the user'saccount. When the user is authorized at the call center 115 the call maytrigger an information retrieval operation that invokes user preferenceand interest identification procedures that retrieve the stored historyinformation and obtain the most relevant information to present to theuser in the form of an interactive voice response (IVR) system.Additional examples are provided in FIGS. 2B and 2C.

FIG. 2B illustrates an example system diagram of the communicationsignaling diagram for providing a user device with predicted optionsbased on prior user history. Referring to FIG. 2B, the communicationdiagram 240 includes three entities communicating among one anotherincluding the user device 242, the customer support call center ormessage processing server 244 and the preference database 246. Thecustomer support entity 244 and the preference database 246 may beseparate computer processing devices or may be the same device and mayoperate at a remote site and/or in the cloud computing space.

In the event that the user device transmits an inquiry, such as arequest for service or assistance via a dialed call, an applicationmessage generation selection option on a smartphone application or viaanother option, such as SMS messaging, the message may be generated 250and transmitted from the user device 242 to a customer support site 244.The message may be received and processed to identify and authorize 252the user via the user's phone number, IP address, username, credentials,electronic certificate, etc. The user may be paired with a particularaccount and/or a set of user preferences stored in a database 246. Theuser account or preferences may be derived from previous calls orinteractions received from the user and/or user selections, usersubscription data, etc. The user history may be retrieved 254 andforwarded 256 to the customer support server 244.

In one example, the user may have called the customer support 244 andspoke words, such as “sports”, “football”, “movies”, “high speedInternet”, “affordable”, “NFL”, “NCAA”, “Sweet Sixteen tournament”,“European Soccer”, “HBO”, “movie packages”, “late night entertainment”,“foreign film”, “children shows”, “comedy”, etc. Those words may berecorded, converted to text and stored in the user's profile. The user'sprofile may be retrieved when the user seeks access to the customersupport service 244 and then preferences may be derived from the user'shistory information by performing a predictive analysis via a likelihoodfunction 258. The basic operation of the likelihood function mayidentify a frequency of terms related to a broader subject and identifythe user's preferences accordingly. For example, in the above examplethe spoken terms mostly relate to sports and if all such terms werespoken by a user, submitted in short message service (SMS) messages,were part of an email, etc., in one or more previous interactions andwere recorded and stored in a data file, then the algorithm would likelyextract a main preference to be [sports] and a secondary preference tobe [movies] based on the various movie inquiries or [family] based onthe wide range of categories.

These preferences then can be queued in order depending on theirrelevance. The relevance may be based on an assigned weight valueproportional to the number of times the words appear. For example, thesports related terms appear four times in the user's personal storedinformation. As a result, the weight for “sports” may be equal to fourfor that preference while the weight for “movies” may be equal to two,which is a lower weighted user preference. The user device may first bepresented with a question related to sports, such as “do you want tohear about new sports packages for your online cable service?” or “areyou satisfied with your sports packages?”. Once the user denies theopportunity by selecting “no” or ignoring the message transmitted to theuser device. In such a case, the second most weighted identifiedpreference may then be presented to the user once the first option hasbeen ignored after a certain amount of time.

During the user history identification procedure, the inquiry/callpurpose may be identified via a predictive analysis that applied thelikelihood function to a prediction operation that labels the user'sinquiry as being associated with a particular purpose 260. The nextdetermination may be to determine whether the inquiry message or callshould be responded to with a promotional advertisement or whether theuser needs immediate support 262. If the call requires support from atechnical perspective or other service oriented issue, the call may beautomatically forwarded to a call center agent in the correspondingdepartment 264 that can respond with an automated all service, anautomated text message service or even a live agent service. However, ifthe inquiry can be subjected to certain paid services or promotions,then the relevant promotions that are linked to the user preferences maybe retrieved 266 and presented 268 in the order according to the user'spreferences which are queued in a weighted order of relevance.

FIG. 2C illustrates an example network diagram 270 of an alternativeexample of using a third party user profile to generate predictiveresponses to a user device. Referring to FIG. 2C, a customer 110 mayinclude a user 111 operating a mobile device 112. For example, themobile device may be a phone or similar mobile communication device 112(i.e., smartphone) that is used to place a call to a business entity,such as a cable company to discuss a technical support matter. The callmay be connected at operation 150 to a customer support system, such asan interactive voice response (IVR) system 115. A customer servicerepresentative may be operating a phone 117 across a voice network 110(i.e., digital network (Internet), public switched telephone network(PSTN), private data network, etc.). The call may also be answered by anautomated call processing system that provides automated user optionsvia an IVR communication server 116.

In operation, the call may be placed by a dialed number on the user'ssmartphone 112. The call may be routed to a customer service supportsystem 115 and connected to an IVR server 116. The call may be initiatedby a dialed number of an automated call placing function associated withan installed application on the user's smartphone 112. Upon connectingthe call, the IVR server 116 may identify and authenticate the user 111as being a particular person with a corresponding profile (i.e., useraccount number, user name and address, user preferences, etc.). Theprofile of the user may be identified form a third party source 272. Theuser's smartphone device 112 may be identified as having a particularSIM card or other identifying feature that provides identification andauthorization of the user 111 via the user's device 112. The user mayalso be identified by dialing or speaking his or her name and/or accountnumber once the call has started and the user is prompted to supplyidentification information. The user may instead transmit a SMS messagewith certain terms, questions and concerns to the customer supportsystem 116.

Upon receiving identification of the user, the call processing IVRserver 116 may attempt to further authorize the user prior to accessingthe user's account information and offering the user 111 an opportunityto make changes to his or her account. The user may be authorized andidentified to access their own customer records to make changes to theiraccount. The server 116 may retrieve the customer's known preferencesfor handling a customer call inquiry. Preferences may also be receivedfrom the user by a series of questions and corresponding user responses.In another example, the user preferences may be derived from informationretrieved from the third party data source 272 and applied 276 to amessage response algorithm that determines the user as having certainpreferences or interests. For example, when the user device transmits aninquiry message to the customer support system 115, the user's socialnetworking information (e.g., FACEBOOK®, TWITTER®, LINKEDIN®, etc.), andthe information may be parsed to identify terms that match a predefinedlist of terms used to identify and create preferences associated withthe user. For example, if the user has updated his or her profile 274 toinclude entries in a blog, profile information, posted links, photos,locations, places, sports, entertainment, special interests, charities,etc., then the user may be identified as having a special interest orpreference that is associated with a service or product that can beoffered by the customer support system 115. In such a case, the customersupport system will retrieve the current advertisements and offersrelated to that preference(s) and provide those offers to the user viaan IVR system, a text message, an email or other communication medium.

FIG. 2D illustrates an example system diagram of the communicationsignaling diagram for providing a user device with predicted optionsbased on third party user information. Referring to FIG. 2D, thecommunication diagram 280 includes three entities communicating amongone another including the user device 242, the customer support callcenter or message processing server 244 and the third party socialnetworking information source 278. The customer support entity 244 andthe social networking information 278 may be separate computerprocessing devices or may be the same device and may operate at a remotesite and/or in the cloud computing space.

In the event that the user device transmits an inquiry, such as arequest for service or assistance via a dialed call, an applicationmessage generation selection option or via another option, the messagemay be generated 282 and transmitted from the user device 242 to acustomer support site 244. The message may be received and processed toidentify and authorize 284 the user via the user's phone number, IPaddress, username, credentials, electronic certificate, etc. The usermay be paired with a particular account and/or a set of user preferencesidentified from the third party social networking site or database 278.The user account or preferences may be derived from previous calls orinteractions received from the user and/or user selections, usersubscription data, etc. The user profile may be retrieved 286 andforwarded 288 to the customer support server 244.

In one example, the user may have posted information on a blog, such asjokes and comments to certain friend accounts of the user, such asreferences to certain sports teams, comments about recent movies,political comments, vacation information, etc. Those words may beidentified and stored in the user's profile account. The user's profilemay be retrieved when the user seeks access to the customer supportservice 244 and then preferences may be derived from the user's socialnetworking account information by performing a predictive analysis via alikelihood function 290. The basic operation of the likelihood functionmay identify a frequency of terms related to a broader subject, such assports, politics, movies, etc., and identify the user's preferencesaccordingly. For example, in the above example the written terms maymostly relate to politics and all such terms may be written by a user,submitted in blog postings and/or were comments submitted electronicallyand on a server of the social networking platform. The algorithm of thelikelihood function would then likely extract a main preference to be[politics] and a secondary preference to be [sports] based on thevarious information submitted from the user account. Those preferencesthen can be queued in order depending on their relevance. The relevancemay be based on an assigned weight value proportional to the number oftimes the words appear for that category. For example, the politicsrelated terms “gun control”, “Obama”, “Congress”, etc., may appear fourtimes in the user's personal stored information and the terms “LALakers” and “NFL” are two instances of sports terms, and may be requiredto appear over a recent window of time, such as 10, 20, 30, 60 days. Asa result, the weight for “politics” may be equal to four for thatpreference while the weight for “sports” may be equal to two, which is alower weighted user preference. The user device may first be presentedwith a question related to sports, such as “do you want to hear aboutnew sports packages for your online cable service?” or “are yousatisfied with your sports packages?”. Once the user denies theopportunity by selecting “no” or ignoring the message transmitted to theuser device. In such a case, the second most weighted identifiedpreference may then be presented to the user once the first option hasbeen ignored.

During the user history identification procedure, the inquiry/callpurpose may be identified via a predictive analysis that applied thelikelihood function to a prediction operation that labels the user'sinquiry as being associated with a particular purpose 292. The nextdetermination may be to determine whether the inquiry message or callshould be responded to with a promotional advertisement or whether theuser needs immediate support 294. If the call requires support from atechnical perspective or other service oriented issue, the call may beautomatically forwarded to a call center agent in the correspondingdepartment 296 that can respond with an automated call service, anautomated text message service or even a live agent service. However, ifthe inquiry can be subjected to certain paid services or promotions,then the relevant promotions that are linked to the user preferences maybe retrieved 298 and presented 299 in the order according to the user'spreferences which are queued in a weighted order of relevance.

FIG. 3 illustrates an application personalization system 300 accordingto example embodiments. Referring to FIG. 3, the system 300 includes aset of user preferences stored under user profiles in a database 340.One example method of operation may include the system 300 applying userprofile information to a customized application model. In operation, auser call is received from a user device at the system device ordevices. The call information is received and the user is identified andauthorized based on call information received from the call. Theauthorization information may include the user's telephone number, a pinnumber, a determined location, a sample of voice, etc.

Once the user is authorized, the user's profile is retrieved via theuser preference retrieval module 310 and at least one user preferencemay be discovered from the user profile. The at least one userpreference may be applied to a user call processing application via theapplication customization module 320. During the course of the call, theuser preferences may be updated, accepted and modified based on the userinput provided. Any changes or updates may be identified, saved andstored in memory by the user preference storage module 330.

The user preferences may be used as a basis for retrieving live callmenu options and transmitting them to the user device based on theapplied user preference(s). For example, the user preference may bematched to a pre-recorded audio segment stored in a database. Thepre-recorded audio segment may be transmitted to a user device once thematch is made. For example, a user preference, such as [billinginformation] may be matched to an audio segment that informs the user ofa dollar amount of a current service bill. In another example, variousdifferent user preferences may be matched to a corresponding pluralityof pre-recorded audio segments. Those audio segments may be queued intoa call sequence, which is transmitted as a set of pre-recorded audiosegments to the user device.

According to one example embodiment, phone calls which are dialed out ofa user device a one option among many options to contact a customersupport service center. In another example embodiment, the user may beaccessing customer support via any communication channel/medium, such asemail, live chat applications, website access, and mobile deviceapplications. For example, transmitting menu options and/orautomatically selecting a menu option for a user may be performedresponsive to identifying the user and one or more of his or herpreferences for processing customer support inquiries, or perhapsbypassing a menu and providing direct access to an automated customersupport dialogue operation of the customer service processing system.

A user's preferred channel of communication may be identified via his orher preferences. In one example, a user may initiate a first medium ofcommunication, via a text message, smartphone application, call, etc. Asa result, the user call processing system may identify the inquiry fromthe user and apply one or more preferences to the result. In oneexample, the user may text an inquiry for an upgrade in service andreceive an email with information regarding the upgrade since that isthe user's preference to communicate with email. A user's preferredchannel of communication may be a user preference in general.

Other factors may be applied to the inquiry processing, such as todetermine option processing for a particular user. For example, a user'spreferences, past behavior/selections, subscription account type,history of selections, demographic information, personal information,social networking profile or present behavior. If a user accesses anapplication and selects option “1” at the main menu every time in thepast then the application may bypass that selection process in asubsequent call instead of making the user answer or listen to a menuand make a selection.

Other factors may be environmental. For example, if a user is a platinumcustomer, the application would look at agent availability and transferthe user directly to an agent if one is available or provide the userwith their favorite menu choices. Other examples of environmentalfactors may include inclement weather, airport delays, boxing matches,playoff games, movie releases, overdue payments, prescription refill duedate, etc. Custom “Strategy Engines” or rules engines may be applied fora number of clients for the purpose of segregating certain businesslogic from the main customer service application. One example may permitthe clients to modify rule parameters to alter application behaviorwithout having to go through an application development cycle. Suchrules, when triggered, will alter the flow of the application to providea more intelligent and personalized experience via a predictive intentof the use being identified.

Another example method of identifying a user inquiry and correspondingpurpose for the inquiry provides receiving an inquiry from a user deviceat a customer call center server or comparable device and identifyingand authorizing the user from the received inquiry. The next operationmay include retrieving a user profile from memory that includes thehistory information based on previous interactions between the userdevice and the customer call center server (e.g., calls, messages,spoken dialogue, account information, etc.) and calculating a predictionas to a purpose for the inquiry. Then, transmitting a response to theinquiry based on the calculated prediction.

The inquiry may include at least one of a call and a short messageservice (SMS) message or other comparable smartphone communicationoption, such as email. Once the user history information is retrieved,the process may include identifying a plurality of terms associated withat least one predefined topic in the history information and calculatingat least one weighted interest based on a number of terms associatedwith the at least one predefined topic. In another example, the processmay include calculating a plurality of weighted interests, and storingthe plurality of weighted interests in a queue in order of a magnitudeof weights assigned to each of the weighted interests.

The method may also include retrieving the advertisement associated witha first weighted interest at a top position of the queue, andtransmitting the at least one advertisement to the user device. Themethod may also provide waiting a predefined amount of time andreceiving a negative response message from the user device responsive tothe transmitted at least one advertisement, and transmitting at leastone additional advertisement to the user device based on a secondweighted interest in a next position of the queue.

In an alternative example, the user profile associated with the userdevice may be retrieved from a remote social networking database, andthe at least one user preference may be identified from informationassociated with the user profile, and a reason for the inquiry may bepredicted based on the at least one identified user preference includedin the user's profile.

One example method of operation is illustrated in the flow diagram ofFIG. 4A. Referring to FIG. 4A, the example method of operation 400 mayinclude a method of applying user profile information to a customizedapplication. The method may include receiving a call from a user deviceat operation 402. The method may also include identifying andauthorizing the user from call information received from the call, atoperation 404 and retrieving a user profile comprising at least one userpreference, at operation 406. The method may further include applyingthe at least one user preference to a user call processing applicationat operation 408 and transmitting menu options to the user device basedon the applied at least user preference at operation 410. Also, theoperations may provide auto-selecting a menu option and/or bypassing themenu and transmitting the call into an automated customer supportdialogue.

In another example flow diagram of FIG. 4B, a method of operation isillustrated. Referring to FIG. 4B, the flow diagram provides receivingan inquiry from a user device at a customer call center server andidentifying and authorizing the user from the received inquiry atoperation 422, retrieving a user profile from memory including historyinformation based on previous interactions between the user device andthe customer call center server at operation 424. The method alsoprovides calculating a prediction as to a purpose for the inquiry atoperation 426 and transmitting a response to the inquiry based on thecalculated prediction at operation 428.

According to example embodiments, other factors may be applied to aninquiry message (e.g., email, text message, phone call, applicationmessage submission, etc.) submitted from a user device to determine atreatment for a particular user. For example, the user's pastbehavior/selections or the user's present behavior/selections. If a useraccesses an application and selects option “1” at the main menu everytime, perhaps the application will just make that selection for the userinstead of requiring the user to listen to a menu and then make aselection. A predefined threshold may be required to actuate theautomatic selection operation (e.g., “N” previous consecutiveselections).

Other factors may be environmental. For example, if a user is a platinumcustomer via their profile, the application will look at agentavailability and transfer the user directly to an advanced agent if oneis available—otherwise, provide the user with their known, establishedand logged favorite menu choices. Other examples of environmentalfactors include inclement weather, airport delays, boxing matches,playoff games, movie releases, overdue payments, prescription refilldue, etc.

Custom “strategy engines” or “rules engines” may be used for a number ofclients for the purpose of segregating certain business logic from themain customer service application. One of the key functions ispermitting clients to modify rule parameters to alter applicationbehavior without having to go through an application development cycle.Such rules, when triggered, will alter the flow of the application toprovide a more intelligent and personalized experience.

The operations of a method or algorithm described in connection with theembodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in acomputer program executed by a processor, or in a combination of thetwo. A computer program may be embodied on a computer readable medium,such as a storage medium. For example, a computer program may reside inrandom access memory (“RAM”), flash memory, read-only memory (“ROM”),erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (“EEPROM”), registers, hard disk, aremovable disk, a compact disk read-only memory (“CD-ROM”), or any otherform of storage medium known in the art.

An exemplary storage medium may be coupled to the processor such thatthe processor may read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anapplication specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”). In the alternative,the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components.For example, FIG. 5 illustrates an example network element 500, whichmay represent any of the above-described network components of the otherfigures.

As illustrated in FIG. 5, a memory 510 and a processor 520 may bediscrete components of the network entity 500 that are used to executean application or set of operations. The application may be coded insoftware in a computer language understood by the processor 520, andstored in a computer readable medium, such as, the memory 510.Furthermore, a software module 530 may be another discrete entity thatis part of the network entity 500, and which contains softwareinstructions that may be executed by the processor 520. In addition tothe above noted components of the network entity 500, the network entity500 may also have a transmitter and receiver pair configured to receiveand transmit communication signals (not shown).

Although an exemplary embodiment of the system, method, and computerreadable medium of the present application has been illustrated in theaccompanied drawings and described in the foregoing detaileddescription, it will be understood that the application is not limitedto the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements,modifications, and substitutions without departing from the spirit orscope of the application as set forth and defined by the followingclaims. For example, the capabilities of the system can be performed byone or more of the modules or components described herein or in adistributed architecture and may include a transmitter, receiver or pairof both. For example, all or part of the functionality performed by theindividual modules, may be performed by one or more of these modules.Further, the functionality described herein may be performed at varioustimes and in relation to various events, internal or external to themodules or components. Also, the information sent between variousmodules can be sent between the modules via at least one of: a datanetwork, the Internet, a voice network, an Internet Protocol network, awireless device, a wired device and/or via plurality of protocols. Also,the messages sent or received by any of the modules may be sent orreceived directly and/or via one or more of the other modules.

One skilled in the art will appreciate that a “system” could be embodiedas a personal computer, a server, a console, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a cell phone, a tablet computing device, a smartphoneor any other suitable computing device, or combination of devices.Presenting the above-described functions as being performed by a“system” is not intended to limit the scope of the present applicationin any way, but is intended to provide one example of many embodimentsof the present application. Indeed, methods, systems and apparatusesdisclosed herein may be implemented in localized and distributed formsconsistent with computing technology.

It should be noted that some of the system features described in thisspecification have been presented as modules, in order to moreparticularly emphasize their implementation independence. For example, amodule may be implemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom verylarge scale integration (VLSI) circuits or gate arrays, off-the-shelfsemiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, or other discretecomponents. A module may also be implemented in programmable hardwaredevices such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable arraylogic, programmable logic devices, graphics processing units, or thelike.

A module may also be at least partially implemented in software forexecution by various types of processors. An identified unit ofexecutable code may, for instance, comprise one or more physical orlogical blocks of computer instructions that may, for instance, beorganized as an object, procedure, or function. Nevertheless, theexecutables of an identified module need not be physically locatedtogether, but may comprise disparate instructions stored in differentlocations which, when joined logically together, comprise the module andachieve the stated purpose for the module. Further, modules may bestored on a computer-readable medium, which may be, for instance, a harddisk drive, flash device, random access memory (RAM), tape, or any othersuch medium used to store data.

Indeed, a module of executable code could be a single instruction, ormany instructions, and may even be distributed over several differentcode segments, among different programs, and across several memorydevices. Similarly, operational data may be identified and illustratedherein within modules, and may be embodied in any suitable form andorganized within any suitable type of data structure. The operationaldata may be collected as a single data set, or may be distributed overdifferent locations including over different storage devices, and mayexist, at least partially, merely as electronic signals on a system ornetwork.

It will be readily understood that the components of the application, asgenerally described and illustrated in the figures herein, may bearranged and designed in a wide variety of different configurations.Thus, the detailed description of the embodiments is not intended tolimit the scope of the application as claimed, but is merelyrepresentative of selected embodiments of the application.

One having ordinary skill in the art will readily understand that theapplication as discussed above may be practiced with steps in adifferent order, and/or with hardware elements in configurations thatare different than those which are disclosed. Therefore, although theapplication has been described based upon these preferred embodiments,it would be apparent to those of skill in the art that certainmodifications, variations, and alternative constructions would beapparent, while remaining within the spirit and scope of theapplication. In order to determine the metes and bounds of theapplication, therefore, reference should be made to the appended claims.

While preferred embodiments of the present application have beendescribed, it is to be understood that the embodiments described areillustrative only and the scope of the application is to be definedsolely by the appended claims when considered with a full range ofequivalents and modifications (e.g., protocols, hardware devices,software platforms etc.) thereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: receiving an inquiry to asoftware application from a user device; retrieving a profile of a userassociated with the user device; matching a plurality of preferences inthe profile of the user to a plurality of pre-recorded audio segments;ordering, via the software application, the plurality of pre-recordedaudio segments into an ordered sequence; generating an audio call inresponse to the inquiry which includes the ordered sequence ofpre-recorded audio segments; and transmitting the audio call from thesoftware application to the user device.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the inquiry comprises at least one of: a call and a shortmessage service (SMS) message.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein themethod further comprises: retrieving an advertisement associated withthe inquiry; and transmitting the advertisement to the user device. 4.The method of claim 3, further comprising: performing at least one ofwaiting a predefined amount of time and receiving a negative responsemessage from the user device responsive to the transmitted at least oneadvertisement; and transmitting an additional advertisement to the userdevice.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieving the profilefurther comprises: retrieving the profile from a memory comprisinghistory information; or retrieving the profile from a remote socialnetworking database.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:identifying and authorizing the user device from the received inquiry.7. An apparatus, comprising: a receiver configured to receive an inquiryto a software application from a user device; a processor configured to:retrieve a profile of a user associated with the user device, match aplurality of preferences in the profile of the user to a plurality ofpre-recorded audio segments, order, via the software application, theplurality of pre-recorded audio segments into an ordered sequence, andgenerating a generate an audio call in response to the inquiry whichincludes the ordered sequence of pre-recorded audio segments; and atransmitter configured to transmit the audio call to the user device. 8.The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the inquiry comprises at least one of:a call and a short message service (SMS) message.
 9. The apparatus ofclaim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to: retrieve anadvertisement that is associated with the inquiry, and the transmitteris further configured to transmit the advertisement to the user device.10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to: perform at least one of waiting a predefined amount oftime and receive a negative response message from the user deviceresponsive to the transmitted at least one advertisement, and thetransmitter is configured to transmit an additional advertisement to theuser device.
 11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor isfurther configured to: retrieve the profile from a memory comprisinghistory information, or retrieve the profile from a remote socialnetworking database.
 12. The apparatus of claim 7, further wherein theprocessor is further configured to: identify and authorize the userdevice from the received inquiry.
 13. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium configured to store one or more instructions that whenexecuted cause a processor to perform a method comprising: receiving aninquiry to a software application from a user device; retrieving aprofile of a user associated with the user device; matching a pluralityof preferences in the profile of the user to a plurality of pre-recordedaudio segments; ordering, via the software application, the plurality ofpre-recorded audio segments into an ordered sequence; generating anaudio call in response to the inquiry which includes the orderedsequence of pre-recorded audio segments; and transmitting the audio callfrom the software application to the user device.
 14. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the inquirycomprises at least one of a call and a short message service (SMS)message.
 15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 13, wherein the method further comprises: retrieving anadvertisement associated with the inquiry; and transmitting theadvertisement to the user device.
 16. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method furthercomprises: at least one of waiting a predefined amount of time andreceiving a negative response message from the user device responsive tothe transmitted at least one advertisement; and transmitting at leastone additional advertisement to the user device.
 17. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the method furthercomprises: identifying and authorizing the user device from the receivedinquiry.